Herman Berliner

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Both of my kids have been issued iIPads in school and I am convinced they are receiving a better, more sophisticated and dynamic education as a result of the use of technology. At the same time, I worry about all the screen time that has now been incorporated into their lives.

Notwithstanding the impact of Sandy, I have much to be thankful for, including this year’s very welcome Thanksgiving Day break. But what I am most thankful for is not yet a done deal but rather a new feeling that suggests we will avoid the fiscal cliff.

Over the years, I have participated in many telephone interviews of potential candidates for positions at Hofstra as well as for not-for-profit boards that I have participated on. Interviewing candidates in this way has always struck me as second best (but certainly better than not participating).

It is now Monday morning and we are resuming classes today. The campus has been very fortunate. Our loss of power was limited and of short duration and the campus damage was mostly limited to trees with very little other damage. Long Island’s damage was extensive with reports of 100,000 homes lost and almost 300,000 homes still without power 5 days later. The devastation on the north shore and south shore of the Island was massive.

In 2008, when Hofstra hosted the third Presidential debate, I received an e-mail from a person I attended high school with, many years earlier. This person was not a close friend and there had been no contact for all the years between high school and early October 2008. In the e-mail, the person indicated that he had been thinking about me for the last 40 years and, by the way, did I have a spare ticket to the debate.

From my days in college, the only stress I remember is social stress and the stress of fitting in but that isn’t the stress being talked today. Today’s stress is financial stress and it is clearly manifesting itself on today’s generation of students.

The cheating scandal at Harvard which could involve as many as 125 students in a single class has gotten extensive publicity. And the impression given is that this is an unusual event. For example, as quoted in the New York Times, Harvard’s dean of undergraduate education noted that this cheating incident at Harvard “is unprecedented in its scope and magnitude.” This may be correct, given that it involves almost half of the class, but cheating and academic dishonesty are not unusual events and the “scope and magnitude” of what happens nationwide is certainly disturbing.